Sarah Saldaña On New U.S. Attorney Appointment

NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) – She is known as the prosecutor who took on Dallas City Hall in the largest corruption trial in the city’s history. Now Sarah Saldaña is ready to continue fighting public corruption as the new U.S. Attorney for North Texas.

In her first interview since being sworn in, Saldaña talked with NewsRadio 1080 KRLD and said she brings an expertise in white-collar crime to the office.

“From my background economic or financial crimes have taken a front seat, in terms of trying to go after people who have scammed folks in investment schemes.”

Saldaña takes over the top seat just as the investigation of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price gets underway. But Saldaña said she isn’t looking for corruption any more that any other U.S. Attorney.

“Public corruption is one of the highest priorities of the Department of Justice and so it’s not as if we’re looking for these cases, but they come our way and we’re not going to ignore them,” she said. “I think we’re gonna continue taking prosecutions of cases where the evidence is there.”

Saldaña said regardless who is at the center of any case she is ready to continue fighting public corruption.

“It’s a priority of the department. Obviously things that undermine our justice system is to have public officials doing things that are not proper, so we take it seriously and we investigate them and we prosecute them and have had some success doing that.”

Leading one of the largest U.S. Attorney offices in the country, Saldaña said she also intends to continue an aggressive fight against anyone who traffics in child pornography and will continue the fight against terrorism.

U.S. Attorney Saldaña succeeds Richard Roper, who resigned from the office to go into private practice and Jim Jacks who was appointed as an interim U.S. Attorney after Roper’s departure.